Rooster_Ties

Yeah, Tolliver was knocking around in the back of my head as maybe a good choice for the 2nd half-hour of the radio-show. (And after covering a tenor player, having a trumpeter would be good for ballance too.) Would also make sense cuz I just hooked up Gerald (the guy with the show), with Tolliver's entire Strata East catalog on CD (or at least all five of the pre-1980 titles). Helen Sung was great last night. I didn't know the guys she played with, but I probably should have (both local guys): Craig Akin (b) and Matt Kane (d). They did get to do some rehearsal-time in the afternoon, so there were a fair number of her originals, and some obscure covers too (including a Prince tune).

Holy shit, HERE's a blindfold test with the entire "Jody Grind" line-up of the Horace Silver quintet!!! And here's a picture of the group too!!! L-to-R: Tyrone Washington, Woody Shaw, Roger Humphries, Larry Ridley and Horace Silver

A good interview/article about Woody Shaw can be found HERE, which mentions Tyrone about four times. No real biographical info, but some interesting perspectives, including how Horace Silver felt that Tyrone and/or Woody were taking things 'out' a bit farther than he really wanted (which I've heard from other sources as well).

Hi everybody. Ran into a friend of mine tonight here in KC, who twice a week has a jazz radio-show on a community FM station. He's invited me to come on his show, this Tuesday afternoon, and do the hour with him that he normally devotes to a single artist. He's asked me to bring in recordings for one (or two, more likely) interesting, lesser-known jazz artists -- to fill his first hour on Tuesday. I'm pretty sure that Tyrone Washington would be a great choice (and my first choice), and I'm still mulling over the 2nd choice (and am open to suggestions), to fill out the 2nd half of the hour. (And FYI, I think I'm going to save Andrew Hill for some other time -- and see if Gerald will invite me back to do a full hour on Andrew Hill, next time.) Anyway, what are your favorite tunes with and/or by Tyrone Washington. I'm asking for suggestions of tunes both from his own sessions (as a leader), and also anything he was a sideman on. And, discographically speaking, besides everything he recorded for Blue Note (which I can look-up in my BN discography), what all else does Tyrone appear on as a sideman (again, besides his BN recordings). Off the top of my head, I know and have his date with Stanley Cowell as a leader, and I have Tyrone's other two non-BN albums as a leader. I will start doing some searches in the morning to refresh my memory about some of the others, but I thought I'd go ahead and start a thread about this now -- since Tuesday will be here before I know it. Thanks!!! -- Tom / Rooster T. PS: Any bio info on Tyrone would be much appreciated, as well as what happened to him. I knew more about him at one time (from some threads on the old BNBB), but those are long gone. Last I remember, he was in New Jersey, working as some sort of nurse, or counselor?? And then he just disappeared, at least from the public scene, round about 1975 or so. (Gosh, I wish I had saved those threads from the BNBB.) Thanks in advance, if anyone has a better memory than I do about all this. Thanks!!!

Maybe I should amend my former statement to say that there are many great performances going on there, as opposed to one great ("united") performance. Individually speaking, Joe's outstanding, as is McCoy. And actually, individually, they probably all four are outstanding. But there's a degree of cleanness to the performance that's somewhat unsettling. It's not unlike a painter that paints idyllic scenes where everything in the picture is arranged perfectly, in a way that you know would never occur in real life. Those paintings might be beautiful in an abstract sense, but it's like you can't relate to them - because they're so pristine, and perfect. Does that describe it better???

The only fast-food I eat with any regularity is Taco Bell (probably 10 or 12 times a year, usually when I’m on some sort of road-trip, like to St. Louis). Nobody would ever confuse Taco Bell with real Mexican food -- but it is consistently good, and probably not as bad for you as many other fast-food places (or so I suspect). That, and I'm a sucker for McDonald's breakfast burritos, if I'm looking for fast-food in the morning (usually only a few times a year). Otherwise, I never set foot in a McDonalds, or Hardies, or Burger King, or Arby's, or really any of the other traditional fast-food chains. Most of the rest of my "faster" food choices are what I guess the industry calls "upscale fast food", like the relatively new burrito-wrap places, or the bagel chains with the fancy sandwiches. But even then, only a couple times a month, at most. Fortunately there are a whole bunch of independently owned restaurants really close to where we live (within a mile or less), many of which are family owned. Two great Vietnamese restaurants, a Thai place, a couple good Indian restaurants, a great, authentic Italian deli with pastas and sandwiches, and a couple good, authentic Mexican places. Luckily, several of them are relatively fast too, if you don't hit them right during rush time. Also, there's also a chain sandwich shop ("Planet Sub"), that started right here in Kansas City (actually, it started as "Yellow Sub" in Lawrence, KS - where my wife went to school at K.U.), as we go there fairly often for "fast" food too. They bake their own bread, and overall - they're light-years better than Subway, or Jimmy John's.

GREAT session. I think it was one of the very first 50 CD's I ever bought (maybe even one of the first 25), and I remember (at the time) thinking it was the greatest thing since sliced bread!! But over the years, though, I've found that I've spun it a bit less than average, compared to other similar things. It's certainly not the performance, which is outstanding... There's just something about the sound, or the "production", I should say. The sound is "great" (notice the quotes). TOO great, in fact. There is an "overproduced" quality about this session, which (to my ears) results in a somewhat antiseptic sounding performance. It's certainly a GREAT performance, but there isn't as much life in it (in the "sound") as I would like. Don't know exactly where to point to details about this, though. Is it Ron Carter's bass being some sort of direct-hookup, or overly close-miked??? Yeah, that's certainly part of it -- though I realize that's become Carter's thing for some time now, I guess since sometime in the 70's. But also, to my ears, everything seems like every musician was in an isolation chamber, and every instrument was close-miked within an inch of its life. And there's no sense of space to the recording, as if they each were performing in little practice rooms with sound-dampening foam-rubber on the walls. (Or at least that's my memory of it - I haven’t listened to it in well over a year. I'll have to give it a spin sometime soon.) Don't get me wrong - the performance is top notch. But the sound just kills it for me. (OK, "just kills it for me" is probably hyperbolic. But it does detract from the experience, enough that I don't pull it off the shelf as often as I should.) Anybody else feel the same way about this recording???

Thanks Jim!! Very interesting to find out that he was interested in the Usonian block-construction techniques of Frank Lloyd Wright, both for their cost-saving possibilities - as well as the inherent sound-dampening those thick walls provided. Very cool. B-) FWIW, here's a good link to a discussion of FLW's Usonian concepts... Link: The Usonian Home 1936-1959: Wright Cannot Be Wrong

FYI, everything from this session is listed as "rejected" in the 2001 BN discog. (No mention of "unissued".) EDIT: PS, it's on the bottom of page 89 in the 2001 edition.

I've heard a solo "Paranoid Android" from Mr. Mehldau before (on a promo-only CD, which also included an exclusive solo performance by Mehldau of an Elliot Smith tune). Mehldau's take on Radiohead really words for me. In fact, I prefer the solo-piano version of "Paranoid Android" that I already have on the promo (I think it was recorded back in about 1999 or so), over the version on Largo. I'm sure I'll pick this one up one of these days.

Yes, another big pre-thanks, Jim. Looking forward to it!!

Amen to that. I couldn't agree more!!!

OK, among other discussion on this topic, this is now "officially" the new "Babe" thread, BUT, specifically for ONLY showing pictures that feature the FACES of women we really think are beautiful. In other words, any pictures people link to in this thread, need to be conservative in terms of the clothing of the subject. THIS THREAD MUST NOT DEVOLVE INTO SOMETHING THAT WE COULDN'T ALL SHOW OUR WIVES, OR OUR MOTHERS, OR OUR GRANDMOTHERS. That said, I have always thought Kim Deal (of The Pixies, and The Breaders), was really pretty -- and in an unconventional way. Kim has a twin sister, Kelley, and they were both in The Breeders... Here's a nice pic of Kim I found, but couldn't link to...

Just wanted to say how much I love this album (Griffin's "Change of Pace"). Really an eye-opener for me, and it's easily the best Johnny Griffin album I've yet heard (though I haven't heard that many). Two thumbs up!!!

Thanks Joe!! Every time I thought I had it dead to rights as being quarter-tones, I'd turn tail and say - nah, it's just half-steps. I could probably pick out the notes better if they were separate from the rest of the tune (nothing else to distract my ear). In any case, I'm glad that's cleared up. Thanks again, Joe!! === And I guess that means there's even odds that a couple of my other examples (see first post in this thread) will turn out to be something less than micro-tonal as well. Can anybody suggest why my ear might be telling me there's something freaky going on with the tuning in those songs, so much so that I think they're microtonal?? (Or maybe a couple of them really are microtonal -- only time will tell.) Thanks in advance for any further discussion anyone has on this topic. (I suppose sooner or later we'll get into the Charles Ives works for two pianos, where one is tuned a quarter-tone higher than the other one. And I suspect there's plenty besides Ives, that've done the same thing. For instance, I'm pretty sure I have a recording of a John Corigliano work for two similarly tuned pianos. Getting off-topic, I know, since this was supposed to be about pop and/or rock music.)

OK, first my specific question (for those of you with better ears than I have). On Bjork's 2nd solo album ("Post"), on the tune "Army of Me" -- are the descending line of closely spaced notes... ...are they quarter-tones (one quarter-tone apart each)??? --- or are they half-steps??? My ears say quarter-tones, but I'd like to get some other opinions, confirming or otherwise. By the way, there's a good sample of from the tune "Army of Me" on the Amazon.com website: CLICK HERE. The notes in question repeat several times, over and over, and first occur at the 5-second mark in the sample-track (over seconds #5, #6, and #7). Quarter-tones, or half-tones. What say you??? ============= Also, I thought it might be fun to bring up the intentional use of microtones and/or quarter tones in Pop and/or Rock music (especially songs that have had some popular success, either on the charts, or on the radio). The first band I thought of, in terms of this larger topic, was Primus -- particularly the bass player, who sounds like a Harmalodic kind of player if ever there was one, at least to my ears (or pretty damn close). Pick your favorite Primus album from Amazon (if you're looking for on-line samples), and I figure everything sounds micro-tonal, at least to some degree -- again, mostly in the bass (which has to be fretless, right??) Another possible example, which seems very microtonal to me (for damn near the whole track), is the Red Hot Chili Peppers, specifically the track "Give It Away" (from the album "Blood Sugar Sex Magik"). While I wouldn't call it overtly Harmalodic sounding, I do think that there is some similarity in a general sense (again, at least to my ears). Also, there was a popular song by the band Elastica, called "Connection" (from the album "Elastica", their self-titled debut, from 1994) -- that had a main vocal melody-line that is very microtonal, for damn near the whole song, chorus and verses too. It had quite a bit of radio-play around here, at least on the alternative stations. More generally speaking, certainly there's lots and lots of bending of notes and such, in popular music -- but I'm thinking of more overt microtonality (throughout a given song), and the Bjork question seemed like a good way to kick off the topic. Discuss...

Hey, I know I have a cassette of this somewhere, but lard only knows where. Anybody got a good burn of it to offer?? Thanks!!!! Here's the AMG review, FWIW: CLICKY PS: It's from Ra's short-lived "disco" era. B-)

Wow!! Listening to the on-line samples now. Damn!!! McCOY TYNER Counterpoints/Live in Tokyo Milestone MCD-9339-2 ~ $14.98 The Greeting, Aisha, Sama Layuca, Prelude to a Kiss, Iki Masho (Let's Go) with Ron Carter, Tony Williams Recorded at Denen Coliseum, Tokyo, Japan, July 28, 1978. (previously unreleased). RealPlayer samples at the link above.

Also... It seems to me that nearly all the same things being said here about Joe, apply equally well to Woody Shaw. (OK, not exactly the same things – but pretty darn similar things, in a parallel sense -- but obviously different, cuz they were different players, on entirely different instruments.) Not to derail this thread entirely, but what do people here think about the degree to which Woody Shaw was innovative??? I think such a discussion would be useful, even in the context of a thread about Joe Henderson. (I almost started another thread, but the real issue here is "innovation" among those artists who were amazingly talented, but who didn't recreate the wheel -- so to speak.) I mention this, because Joe and Woody seem to me to be very, very similar kinds of artists -- both of the very highest caliber, but neither of whom got the popular recognition they really deserved -- or in Joe's case, it was very late in coming (and Woody didn’t live long enough to get his). Neither Joe or Woody reinvented the wheel, but they both sure refined the hell out of it. Maybe to frame the question differently, did either Woody or Joe "break any new ground"?? - so to speak. Paging Dr. Sangry...

OK, for someone to have influenced as many players as Joe has (especially over the last 15-20 years), wouldn't they have to have been "innovative", at least one some levels -- almost by definition?? Especially since Joe was never a huge success, in terms of sales (except perhaps at the very end, with his contract for Verve). I guess I'm saying that Joe's relative lack of "phenomenal success" over the course of his entire career, would suggest (at least to me) that his influence on a whole generation of players was based on something that was, at least on some levels, "innovative". Anybody here buying this line of argument??

Wasn't the horse the lead-singer is this group?? Or do I have this confused with something else??

Amen to that. Take any used car you want to buy to a trusted mechanic, and have them go over the thing from A to Z. Also, be sure to have them do a compression-check on the cylinders. (OK, maybe not for a 2-year old “program” car. But for any car over four years old – do have a compression-check done. It only takes a couple minutes to do, and can reveal potential problems with seals, and burning oil, even relatively early in a car's life.) Most shops will charge you about $25 to $50 to check a used car, bumper to bumper – and many have a preprinted checklist that they use when doing such a check. The last time I bought a used car, my mechanic must have checked over 50 things on the car, and gave a letter-grade to each item (A, B, or C) --- so I knew exactly what I was getting into, in terms of repairs that might be expected on the horizon. BUT, be sure you take it to a mechanic you trust, cuz you don’t just want a big list of everything that isn’t “perfect” on the car.

I just wish to hell that they'd left "All Of Me" and "How High The Moon" out of the new edition.

That is one beautiful photo.... Yeah, I thought so too.